Obsessives: Winemaker

Obsessives: Winemaker

By Meredith Arthur, Eric Slatkin, and Blake Smith

Sean Thackrey is a winemaker, indeed, but he is so much more: an archivist, historian, linguist, photographer, art collector. Thackrey shares his views on the importance of barrels, respect for ancient techniques like letting grapes rest, the word terroir (he hates it), and much more. For wine aficionados, he’s an inspiration. For wine novices, he’s a deep source of knowledge.

This is a regular series called Obsessives, in which CHOW explores the worlds of singularly focused food-industry figures. These are the people with the dirty hands, answering detailed questions about the work they do.